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Title: Education Post by George_J on Apr 17th, 2007, 1:47am A good friend of ours, Shirley, was just hired today by the state Superintendent of Public Instruction to a new position in state government--as director of Innovation in Education. This is truly a dream position--Shirley is a lifelong educator, a former state Teacher of the Year, and former head of school at a non-denominational private school--Foothills School of Arts and Sciences. (Where my daughter went from the 2nd to 9th grades. This was not a coincidence.) http://foothillsschool.org If you're interested..... Anyway, knowing of our interest in education, Shirley's asked EJ and I to pass along any suggestions or thoughts we might have about public education and approaches to meaningful change in the school system. Naturally, I thought of my family here, and wondered--if you were able to suggest changes or innovations in public education, what might they be? This is your opportunity to affect change in at least one small part of the world--please think carefully and give me your best thoughts and suggestions, so that I can pass them along. Who knows, eh? Given some recent events, I think this is particularly pertinent. Many thanks. Best wishes, George |
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Title: Re: Education Post by artonio7 on Apr 17th, 2007, 2:23am I saw a news story that stirred my interest regarding an educational model fashioned after the methods of a teacher from the inner city... sorry I don't remember her name or the names of those involved. The teachers took a totally different approach with the elementary students... The children targeted were considered substandard and sadly considered "throw-aways" or "lost causes". The method employed was total integration of song, dance, rhyme and any method they could think of to engage all of the senses when teaching.... I was exhausted just watching the teacher and students in action as they sang and danced to their lessons. The end result was a group of students who attended school six days a week from 8 am to 5 p.m. with a mandatory 3 hours of homework each evening.... the students did not complain about the work load. They complained about being off on Sunday. All of the targeted test scores were not only met but surpassed. The students who at one point were led to believe they were useless losers were now looking forward to careers as doctors and scientists. They fell in love with learning... and in so doing they learned to love their potential and themselves. Two men took notice of the program and the methods used with these kids and opened a couple schools... If I had children that age I would move to whatever city these schools were in just to enroll them. Perhaps someone else in this group may recall the news segment... I think it may have been on CBS. with warm regards, Tony |
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Title: Re: Education Post by E-Double on Apr 17th, 2007, 10:31am I thought this was gonna be another Yay or Nay ;) Anyway..... As a Special Educator (although I no longer teach kids now I teach the teachers) I have strong feelings regarding "Inclusion" I place the word in quotations because it is a philosophy and not a methodology. If there were standard practices many schools would have successful programs and not the crap that I see daily...... Sorry to rant, maybe I'll PM you. E |
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Title: Re: Education Post by Kevin_M on Apr 17th, 2007, 12:10pm Anniversary today, I believe, that Ann Sullivan conveyed the meaning of the word "water" to Helen Keller in 1887. Much focus and interest is lost when having to switch to another room on the other side of the school every 50 minutes for the next class. The social atmosphere on the trip to the locker erases most concentration worked up and it's hard to keep recapturing that again every hour with a whole new set of kids in every class again, just getting assimilated to a new setting has reacquaintance time. And a teacher competing with the sugar, caffeine and probably salt after lunchtime is challenging. School is social too but jumping that hurdle every 50 minutes with teenagers means the teacher needs to be extraordinarily interesting in presentation, classroom settings aren't always the best place to absorb well, but that's where the teacher is. In elementary school we had about 45 minutes of rowdy playground time that shook out a lot of energy kids have and were able to make the transition from subject to subject all day in the same class. Not practical for advanced studies but the distractions were less and learning more casual together in a stable setting. Working up to a level of concentration for a short while then breaking it time after time all day in school is hard to recapture again when so many other socially emotional things can distract in between classes. A bit of immersion, in small groups or alone is good too, perhaps though instilling initiative for that on their own is needed, but tough to motivate after a day at school is done. In college study groups most of us learned more together, explaining your understanding to others cements your own thoughts and you pick up other's views as well, accomplishing a lot in an hour or two in a small setting of others trying to understand. You start finding yourself preparing for the get together. It was socially ok too, doing other usual entertaining stuff together afterwards, by that time we were older then, not public school. Smaller classes are hard with state's budget constraints |
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